An Easter Cleanse

I am beginning to love juice fasting. The feeling of clarity after those first days, the shape of your belly shrinking and wonderful deep sleeps at night. Yet there’s no pain without gain right? And I need to be brutally honest. Hunger pangs, headaches and persistent mental fog for the first days may have questioning ‘what have I done?’ No where on this planet is it more true than the saying ‘mind over matter’. For many people going without food is something they truly feel they can’t do, but I say challenge that thought. Even if only for one 24 hour period, give it a try. It is a start and maybe next time you will manage a 3, 5 or 7 day cleanse. Believe me, the benefits outweigh the initial discomfort.

So instead of hot cross buns, chocolate eggs and partying with friends, I chose to slow things down (meaning I stay indoors on day one so I’m not tempted to break the fast). You need to be prepared! There’s a bundle of fresh veggies to buy, a dozen litres of filtered water and the main fruits I add are green apples and watermelon. There is a lot of conflicting information out there. I’ve had friends look at me in horror and say ‘not watermelon – its full of sugar!’ Yet when I researched it, watermelon is in the lower 10 sugar fruits – strawberries were the lowest, and red apples in the higher range which is why I choose green apples. I also have fresh ginger and plenty of lemons on hand. This cleanse we have decided to add a soup broth to also sip on, the flavour is different and the warmth makes you feel like your devouring something wholesome.

Why juice cleanse? Basically, to give your digestive system a rest. Our bodies work tirelessly day in and day out. By avoiding roughage for a period time your body can get to work cleansing and healing from the inside (if it’s not spending its energy digesting). By day 4 – 5 you will honestly feel incredible. The tricky part it, you have to get through days 1 – 3 in order to begin reaping the benefits.

The benefits are: weight loss, sparkling skin and eyes and oh la la energy plus. I can’t tell you (yet) if I’ve lowered my cholesterol because I’ll need a blood test, but my daughter’s triglycerides dropped from 7.8 to 2 after our last 7 day juice cleanse! Look, it’s pretty hard to do juice cleansing alone, so much easier if you have a pal to walk the journey with. We spend those first couple of days complaining about our headaches and it’s so good to flop into bed when you need to.

On the up side, we are there to encourage each other when one wants to cave into a food craving. Believe me, you will reap some amazing rewards and feel incredible at the end of it, so much so, that I’m committed to doing a cleanse every 2 – 3 months.